A list of things I used to do when I was young, bored, and unfocused:

Late night viewings of obscure or strange films in small cinemas on the brink of closure. Lectures in this or that, or poetry readings and slams. Lone bike rides around the city after midnight. Long lunches in a greasy spoon, reading every free weekly cover to cover and scribbling in my diary among blue collar workers dining on grits and Korean bbq pork. Encouraging the passions of certain youths and then killing them slowly with my indifference. Wandering secondhand bookshops and picking up books as if they would satisfy inchoate yearning. Reading books I did not understand at all, only to understand them later, now that I'm older and (perhaps) a little wiser. Taking creative writing classes, or classes in paper-mache and book-making. Falling in love, hoping to transcend my boredom.

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